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Went out on monday afternoon bank fishing the detroit lakes area and threw my line in at 3:30. It was sunny and 75 windy south east blowing onto shore and water temp at 51. Started out with a 3/8 white spinner with a paddle tail and got bit and hauled in a nice 5 lb female about 10 feet from shore in 3 ft of water. I wasnt burning the spinner, i let it sink to the bottom and then reeled in just nice and easy and didnt have to worry about weeds because the lake is still way behind on weed growth. I walked the bank and caught 3 more within 30 minutes and 2 pike. I was having so much fun that i didnt need the waders and decided to put on a chatterbait all white and caught 4 more 2-3 lb. I was running the chatter alongside the shoreline through old bullrush stalks on a sandy flat area crashing through it a bass right at the shoreline jumped at the lure just as i had the blade out of the water and i landed him. When the sun went down the wife went for crappies and i started cleaning up and stowing gear and then started to fish using a big jig and a 4 inch gulp minnow as i wanted to catch a walleye so i casted out my lighted bobber and waited while the wife was catching crappie and puttin them on a stringer we ended up not bringing any home to eat. Why you ask? because she slipped on the pea gravel next to the culvert while she was putting a fish on the stringer and as she was falling she dropped the stringer into the water and if dissapeared into the the culvert under the roadway. She searched with a light both ends of the culvert but the stringer was lost. It was now 11pm and my walleye never appeared and the crappie bite stopped. Got home at 12:30am.

you didnt get bit off? Yeah here in detroit lakes region water is way down which means if we dont get a monsoon soon i will be able to wade out to where the boats are spot locked.

i am still waitin till late monday afternoon and plan on throwing some lures at around 4 pm and stay fishing till 11 to 12 midnite. I bought some 4 inch gulp shiners and 3 inch and will use them at around 9pm to hopefully catch some bigger crappie, a walleye, or bass. Also bought some lighted bobbers.

invest your money, 401k plans, cd,s when they are paying good interest rates, the stock market goes up and down but in 25 years you could be a millionaire easilly.

pike also kill my pad crasher frogs, one frog has so many slices in it it gets full of water and sinks a bit and works even better as an open top water. I use 80 lb flouro leader on spooks, frogs, wopper plops all last year and had no problems walking the dog.

same here, never used a big tube and bought some on sale to try out and am sure they will be great.

i have many jigs allready tied up using 80 lb fluoro as a leader and use snaps for all other lures using 80 lb. I am simply tired of losing baits as some lakes i fish i catch a pike then a bass rinse and repeat and the pike like jigs around here. I like catching a good sized pike as they fight so i dont shy away from them, not that i can but i am prepared to land them now and save lures.

i retired at the age of 49. I then moved to the Philippines and bought a motorcycle and drove around till i got tired of driving around exploring. I even took up fishing and snorkeling but the rivers are extremely polluted and the surrounding ocean waters have been destroyed by drag netting over the corals, dynamiting, cyinide fishing and water pollution as the native use the ocean as their garbage dump. I was needing something to do as a retired mechanic that i was starting to offer to help people with fixing broken engines but getting parts in the phlippines is like finding a 12 lb bass in a swimming pool. I was really losing my mind with boordom and some days felt useless and to work in the philippines which as an american i couldnt get hired anyway the wage for a mechanic is $3.00 to 6.00 a day. A college teacher makes $300.00 a month and a doctor about $400.00 a month. My wife working in retail made $185.00 a month and she only did that so she wouldnt be bored at home everyday like me. I got so damned bored after waking up my entire adulthood and as a kid with a paper route at 5am that to this day now 60 yrs old i still wake up at 5am even if i go to sleep at 3am still up at 5. It took me 3 years to get over the anxiety of not working and teaching my mind to mellow out. Now that we are back in the usa i am now using fishing as my main source of taking up my time and enjoying every minute of it.

i am staying home for the opener because i and this is a gut decision think the water here in my part of minnesota which is the detroit lakes area is still to cold and the weed growth is far behind normal. From what i seen last weekend is helping me make this decision. I will go late monday afternoon and fish the early evening into the night and if no bass are biting i will rig up for the late night crappie bite that starts at around 8.30 pm.

those arkie jigs sold at wallmart are only $1.46 and they work great.

Just read the online edition of the minneapolis star tribune and BASS catch and release opening for this weekend will be Delayed for 10 more days to give the spawn a chance to start uneffected by anglers disturbing bass moving into the shallows trying to set up. Well back to crappies and sunnies. Oh by the way i am just bull crapping all of us minnesota fishing nuts so relax and enjoy your morning coffee.

detroit lakes area in minn is predicting sunny and high 60s and from what i seen from the bank from last week there are no weeds poking up or even near poking up, no pads nothing but barren looking shoreline and i didnt see any sign of spawning bass or sunnies. I may just stay home on saturday and sunday, let the water warm up more and go next week when i can have the banks to myself.

same here in minnesota, i walked the shoreline of a major bass lake with very little fishing pressure for a mile and didnt see any spawning bass in prime areas or sunfish. I didnt have a pole as i was waiting for the evening hours to catch some crappie so i went looking to pass the time. Earlier in the day i caught some bass but just dinks. It was a cool windy 60 degrees today with the nights dropping into the low 30s and water temp still at 48 and with the fishing opener this saturday i wonder if anything will change from last saturday or will the wait continue untill the water heats up? By the way when i got home i had a friend stuck into my leg, a tick was burrowed in just a bit so he was easy to get out.

here is how i travel with my rods, i am not worried about scratches. When lake jumping banks i put them in take them out many times in a day.

Culverts are awesome, here is my favorite most productive lake for bass, crappie, pike. It is 2 different lakes where the one on the right has houses the lake on the left has only 3 and no boat ramp. Depending on which way the wind is blowing determines which side i fish. The fish last night were all hanging around the culvert in a V formation looking right into the incoming water waiting as the wind current was pushing the left lake into the right.

Wife and i took the 1 hr drive to detroit lakes area to get some crappies. Water was 47 * air temp 55 * and no wind and cloudy. Lake was flat as a board and crystall clear so i knew we woudnt catch fish untill the evening and it was only 2pm. I was throwing a bunch of crappie lures, jigs, tubes, curly tails and nothing. Sat down for a couple hrs and ate sandwiches and when 5.30 pm came it started to get busy, caught some bass and sunnies and i seen many bass cruising the rock bank back and forth. The only bait that was working was the Gulp 3 inch minnow on a small black jig usig a bobber. Then the bite died and still no crappie so it was so nice out i was determined to stay late to catch the crappie bite if they are even going to bite. Well at 8.30 pm the bite was on and i caught a big fat sunnie and a pike whom wrapped his snout in my 12 lb flouro leader but at least it didnt bite it off. Then the crappie went crazy at 9.00 pm and still using gulp minnows but this time i dunked them in yellow spike it garlic flavor and they were hittin it and now it was pitch black out and still they were on. I had a headlamp on my head so it could see the bobber slightly. Then my wife wanted to try the spike it and she hooked up with the crappie. We now had enough fish for a sunday meal so i stopped fishing and put all our gear up and into the trunk while she cleaned the fish. Got home at 12:00 midnite and it now 2am and i am typin this report. It turned out to be a great day, a long day but great day. Talked to some fisherman in a boat and he said the weed growth is 2 to 3 weeks behind schedule from normal. The Detroit lakes area weather looks good for all next week and into saturday gonna be high 60,s and the bass should be spawning and with really no weed cover goin to be interesting.

My wife is 22 years younger than me, she wont let me feel old. Also my eyes are ok for now and i did ask a optometrist about wearing sunglasses which i do everyday sunny or cloudy. He said the human eye has a built in filter to protect the eye from harmful rays and that sunglasses dont do anything to prevent cataracts. I didnt read up on what he said so if anyone has more info on this let it rip.

tiny crappie tubes in yellow, red and white and gulp minnows but be sure when you grab a new tube out of the package to separate the wigglies on the end because the factory cutter does a terrible job of cutting it 100%

its going to be a cool year in the midwest, bad for growing crops with many cloudy days.

? i always have slack in my line unless i constantly bring the rod up and reel in a bit. Mostly i just let the line and lure do what it wants to due, slack line i dont care untill i move it again.

thanks for explaining about the cam and lifters, never knew that would still be a problem after deactivation.

well theres no shortage of trash. As for food prices i always when at wallmart buy from the deli the cooked chicken breasts fresh off the frier and they are cheap at $1.45 each. Well this week i bought them and the price went up to $1.70 each. Its gettin bad out there with the food manufacturers blatantly reducing the size of all packaging and some even admitting they are raising prices due to their costs.

when i am feelin jiggy which i am this week i have been dunking some in orange and yellow spike it along with the trailors to make some unique colors. I am swapping skirts off of spinners for different looks all in the name of showing something different. I take berkley kingtail worms and cut the tail end off and use for trailers and the rest of the worm works as a stick bait. Fleetfarm had a sale on kingtails reg $6.99 now $1.76 so i bought a bunch of bags of red, green,june bug.

in minnesota with all the pike i am using 80lb seguar for jigs tied directly and a clip and swivel to mainline. I use topwaters the same way but with clips and no problems with catching bass and of course pike.

i break down my 2 piecers and put rubber bands on each end and put them all together rubbing on each other in the trunk and make sure when i shut the trunk nothins gonna get crushed. Last saturday wife and i hit 4 different lakes bank fishing, i dont waste my time putting them in diapers, my rods are all grown up and show no signs of premature aging.